We live in a generation where tiny cellphones have taken the place of intimate yet meaningful conversations or tiny 'getting to know you' chit-chats. Often when we get into greetings on the phone, to our inquiries of

"Hey, what's up?" We want to hear the other say nothing else but "Everything's good. I'm doing well." When in reality though, this may not be their true state of being.

I'm not implying that this technology is bad, surely, yes in our time, it's brought us some good things but I think we can all agree it has also unfortunately taken some aspects of our precious and critical human communication skills away.

Generalational differences come in sizes small to large. One of them I have been seeing a lot recently is with pregnancy and parenting. As someone who is pregnant, I have been doing research and exposing myself to parenting styles and do's and don'ts of pregnancy, the whole gist. One thing I have seen is that boomers and those of the older generations have a lot to say about "gentle parenting." Mainly that those who gentle parent are raising sensitive spoiled brats. They say that talking to a kid will not teach them adequate consequences of their actions, that they will never learn to obey. And in a sense, they are correct. Just talking will not teach them what's wrong or right, nor why it is or not right. Gentle parenting is talking mixed with actions exampling the correct behavior, enforcing the good, reprimading the bad. Yes, it does not always work, but neither does the authoritarian parenting that a lot of boomers used. As someone who grew up with that type of parenting, I can definetely say that I did not learn the things I should have before I was an adult. I had no idea how to regulate my emotions, no healthy coping mechanisms, and absolutely no back bone for my own well-being. This is because what I learnt from my parents parenting style, was that obedience was the only important quality. I did what I was told, but was never told why I was doing or not doing it. So I was fresh out of childhood, 18 years old and living on my own. Sure, I knew that I needed a job to pay bills and keep a roof over my head, but I had no purpose. I was not being actively monitored or controlled. Compared to those who gentle parent, their whole goal is to raise a future adult. They enter adulthood with a better head on their shoulders, more purpose and happiness. At least that is what I have seen. I am still figuring it out, but it is interesting to see the different generations fight about it.

I believe in much the similar veins of other pieces of mine, where I delve into the personal details of my life and multi-faceted faces of my psyche that a cartoon can best explain.

Young Justice Season 3.

Outsiders.

I'd never been more angry watching a TV show.

As often happens in superhero and other fantasy media superpowers and the overall abnormal insanity of their Earth become allegories for prejudice, intolerance, and alienation. Often affecting the already vulnerable of society.

Often it is the burden of people of color or of poor social background and that is a running theme, however the wider demographic is one often not talked about or addressed. Understandably, since it's an adult's world and an adult's news anchor. Such informational TV isn't made for vapid, underdeveloped teenagers to tune into. And yet stories are littered with victims no older than ten on borders or forever shaken by school shootings, murder attempts, exploitation, abuse-- blasted on the media for all to see with never even the chance to actually let them speak.

Certain government organizations such as CIRCLE-- which centers on the civic engagement of demographics across the country-- invested research on this use of children as victims and just as often, instigators of violence without providing actually nuanced perspective on issues at hand in a way that makes them real contributors in overall discussion or what their perspective may have to offer in an emotional or pragmatic appeal.

They thoroughly disprove the notion that youth would "age into," so-called serious media which these days takes a much more politically charged, sensationalist slant in their broadcasts, rather than supposed objectivity. Instead, they smartly analyze the faults found and alienate completely from traditional news forms and by the numbers and figures instead turn to alternative media providers. Namely, social media and video platforms where those like them dominate the conversation.

It has been reported that teenagers are most politically and socially active through social media platforms to eloquently and passionately express their views and discourse on world events or social injustice. And better yet, they're listened to and warmly received as teens often make content that provides active conversation they can participate in and engage with on a deeper level than a constant rerun of the same news cycle speaking on issues but never offering any form of solution or analysis.

Young people want solutions, they want discussions, but more often than not the news proves disappointing.

While slightly exaggerated the fictional news around "meta-humans," in the Young Justice show was much the same format. Sensationalist fear-mongering and political plays of adults using the kids exploited and displaced from across the globe by business and government powers as playing pieces with near no mention of how the problem of rampant human-trafficking hunting meta-genes and child soldiers would be dealt with.

Outsiders was certainly an apt title for the season as the child protagonists under the wing of a now grown up main cast often had no other place to turn to. Pillars of morals and light that were once respected and admired by the world were forced into the shadows, seemingly for no other reason to anyone looking in, for wishing to offer active solutions and relief.

It is stated within the League: "metahumans are the newest exploitable resource."

Anytime a metahuman turns on a TV, whether from their own home or possibly a hospital room or the sole youth center available the news will feature a segment of a UN representative-- a peace organization-- sneering and blustering nastily about "the meta-youth delinquent center," as if many victims weren't known victims of abduction and disappearance. As if they'd somehow committed a crime to end up needing the services of a non-profit to provide lessons for their powers or a stable environment to emotionally heal.

And it was often premiered and touted as a main theme every episode.

The adults seeming all too content to judge while otherwise never addressing the underlying issue or even looking into increased disappearances, of course, save for the superheroes. And villainous characters hardly having to do the work of isolating and turning public opinion towards monitoring and near criminalization of having a meta-power.

In many ways it came off as apathetic, it came off as just horrible, incompetent, and irresponsible.

And yet with programming like Young Justice that uses such allegories and realism in their storytelling there is a real-world equivalent. And those comparisons come quite easily.

Meta-power, trauma, marginalized youths, teens taking to social media in affirming others. It speaks to issues of mental illness and neurodivergence in our real world just to name a few.

It speaks of the politicians and political parties more interested in keeping power and hold over the public's minds than doing the jobs they were sworn in to do. Such as, protecting the peace and instilling tolerance and love towards all nations. Instead of hate-speech and victim blaming.

Outsiders saw Garfield Logan, empowered similarly by violent circumstances and intervention that could not be refused, taking Martian blood to save his own life and so given the morphing power similar to theirs. And at sixteen a child actor with a presence in the news and using his program and role as a hero in that fiction to promote action among individuals.

"See something-- say a kidnapping-- scream something."

"See something, say something."

Don't let a child be kidnapped. Don't let a name and a face disappear.

However, as is super tradition Garfield was set for the heroic track by tragedy. First the cruel murder of his Mother by his country's corrupt monarch, then the untimely death of an adoptive mother and so, in the hands of a stepfather managing his career and a sweet old woman.

That is, until he began making connections towards her[Granny Goodness] involvement in the meta-human trafficking industry. Subtly cornered as she undercuts him during his work, and told by the adult supposed to look out for him to "make things right," "Whatever [it may be] he did to make her mad." When he'd been the one acting professionally and her picking out mistakes where there were none.

However, he has no support and is instead told to keep his tongue, respect his elders. Even when those elders-- neither-- respect him in turn.

That is, until he is able to act in his role as a hero, where he does have the power to act and possibly more vital, the respect of his elders to take his words seriously. And even more than that, take what he does as a person into account instead of just a teen with green skin.

Beast Boy had always been an "openly out," meta-human" but never more than that until pushback forced him to take a closer look and realize their voice wasn't in the media cycle. Not until he forced it there via social media.

And so, formed the Outsiders, a public version of the initial Young Justice team formed with the intent of striking from their respected mentors into the world they were promised. Where in the open Beast Boy and other meta-teens, notably most also being expelled or exiled from most spaces or runaway, served as direct contradictions and proof as to the very best metahumans could be for the world if given the opportunity.

And yet, they were met with red tape and derision for responding to crises. New laws targeting them specifically from doing their work: "forbidding of any meta-teen in certain states," meta-teen, not hero. And that distinction is important as a future episode will display this applies to newly activated meta-humans like a small boy in Cuba whose mother worked loyally with the military.

Season 3 encapsulates really what the world is today. Had been just five years prior. Where kids are ignored and devalued as little more than props, used for a political agenda when said agenda has no room to deal with their injustices anyway. So often, if any grown-up sympathizes and extends help it's a fair chance to say it's because they've experienced the alienation and complete ignorance first-hand.

Young people are told that until they can speak and act like the adults around them their ideas aren't worth acknowledging yet often when they comply, the only ways to get their message across is in youth dominated spaces such as social media and the wider web.

So then, what's left but to get emotional? To be a bit angry and impetuous?

In opposition to so much anger was the savage, vindictive satisfaction to see a rebellion take shape.

We are all Outsiders.

Becoming a chant and rally cry to an unreasonable authority or stubborn audacity to ordinances forbidding superheroes from responding to the super-powered emergencies they simply cannot handle by "normal" "human" means.

We are all Outsiders.

We are all just trying to find our way. And some of us are wired a bit different, do we deserve to be locked out then? Because, I hate to say but in some ways physical punishment and the whole "seen and not heard," as if we were some designer dolls than living flesh that popped out of a-- well just seems weird and not just weird. Downright obscene sometimes.

I believe, after half a two thousand words of grievance and impotent, the most composite ladylike rage we are well past polite words and macchiatos.

Get on board or get out of the way.

We're all prisoners of our time, and each new generation takes on the mantle of the previous and unapologetically question, to fight, to ask for better of what the prior generation passes to them; as did the prior generations ahead of them did in the past.

I think about how our perception of time changes at the cusp of each decade, time speeds up; and we feel closer to our mortality and the delicacy and harshness of life.

I think the older generation looks mostly in fear that the young burst into the world feeling too invincible, too trusting, too...naive; and in a stern voice, the 'old' tries to guide from their own experiences in a sea of changing times.

the old goes 'you don't understand the way of the world'

the young echoes back 'you don't understand us'

a game of blind mice describing what an elephant is like.

I think the young might be too eager to take the entirety of the world into their outstretched arms; too eager to see it all, feel it all, breath it all in. In their youth, they felt time as expansive as the universe; as expansive as the multiverse; they felt the forever so poignantly, so casually -- that I remember in every note I wrote to my best friend in elementary school, I sign it with 'we'll be best friends 4ever' as small charms on bracelets and barbie doll clothes are etched to echo the state of forever and ever in the minds of single-digit aged humans.

prejudices on both sides, if we take the easy reductive lenses.

each generation has a role, has a voice - even if it is said in what sounds like ignorance from one side or another.

listen, find merit in those voices.

only then may we get closer to understanding the elephant in a soup of ambiguity.

I learned about life from my family. My father sucked the air from any room he walked into. His eyes pierced any morsel of joy and he consumed it with loud envy. My mother spun six plates on five sticks without the bandwidth to take on more. There was no teamwork between the two and no love lost when they were through. I zigged and zagged to find my place, never succeeding. And I cried alone with no one to call for.

And then I met a man. He was mature and hard to please. So I didn't try to please him, and I in fact didn't hide anything from him. I was 18, and he was 20, and now that seems very funny, but he seemed so much older and so much wiser. He wasn't afraid of my honesty or the truth of my broken parts. In fact, he fell in love with me and nearly scared me off with his acceptance.

We spend every day together. He fills the room he walks into with light and lots of noise. When I have five plates and five sticks, he will take the one I'm focusing on and try to spin it himself. Even though I did not need or want the help. And our child is the center of our world. He will be what and who he wants and we will sit with him wherever he needs his place to be.

This is something I think about often. I have to. I'm involved in youth work with my church, the local government, and through another voluntary organisation akin to scouts. This a big issue, and it is often a stumbling block to many of our projects.

Unfortunately, I don't believe it is one issue. It is many issues, some big, some small, and some things that really just shouldn't be issues, all intertwined in a big, tangled ball of interconnected problems. A great way of putting it is "integrated complexity" (Uncontrolled, Manzi, Jim, 2012). Our society is so complex that no phenomenon has a single, isolated cause, and no factor would create exactly the same phenomenon, other factors being different. We can't hope to change everything by changing one thing. Changing everything requires changing everything, and that is both almost unachievable, and bound to create new, unexpected problems. So maybe our society itself is the issue? I don't think it's that simple either.

First, let us ask, how deep does this generational disconnect run? Let us take an (almost real) case study. John wants to be an engineer. He enjoys the practical skills of designing and building things in a workshop. Locally, there is a group of men, mostly of a well-matured age, who maintain and operate a working vintage railway. They have a well-equipped workshop and would teach any young person who choose to show interest with passion, happy to have someone interested in their craft. Even if John knew of their existence, which he probably doesn't, he would rather pay to take a class with a bunch of other people and a single tutor, than step into that workshop full people waiting to teach him for free. Why?

Well, first of all, John probably doesn't even know they're there. Older people seem to find it hard to interest younger people in their hobbies and interests. They often move in different circles and connect in different ways. That doesn't mean it's impossible, just difficult. Sometimes older people struggle to learn how to adapt to new patterns, and sometimes no-one makes the effort to help them.

Even if John did know they were there, the same issue crops up. Older people struggle to make their interests relevant to young people. John probably doesn't see the connection between what they do and his aspirations. And if he does, he probably thinks that what they have to teach him is outdated and irrelevant. Sure, it may not be up with the newest technology, but that workshop contains hundreds of cumulative years of knowledge and experience that is worth learning from.

However, things don't end here. Despite any impressions that John may or may not have, they're not the only factors at play. There are plenty of older people that think young people are irreverent, obnoxious, and self-obsessed. Unfortunately, sometimes they are right. But, at least as often, they are not. These people can tend to be very vocal about their opinion, which further clouds young people's perception of the older generation. Whether or not the men in the railway workshop hold this opinion, John may expect that they do, and so keep away from them.

And so we see that young people may think that older people are irrelevant, stuck in the past, and judgemental. While older people, in turn, may see younger people as lacking wisdom, impulsive, and disrespectful. Those who are young need to learn to appreciate the wisdom of the old. While those who are older need to learn to appreciate the energy of youth, and consider how to harness and temper it effectively.

Wait, you ask, what about the generation between? Surely they appreciate both the wisdom of age and the energy of youth? Let them be the mediators. Spot on, well said. I could not agree more. But why isn't it working? Well, my observations would suggest that the current generation of young people feel let down by the previous generation. If you think someone has let you down in the past, why would you listen to them now. So exactly how have they been let down? And why?

This is another issue with no straight-forward answer. Let's briefly look at what I think are a few of the issues. We all know that the cost of living is rising. Pressure to have the newest and best, along with the never-ending onwards race of technology has pushed more and more parents into working longer hours, and spending less time with each other and their families. Young people may feel sidelined or forgotten, and the newest tech seldom truly makes up for the lost bond of time spent together. This, along with other issues related to how our society perceives marriage relationships (@voiceinthewind has some relevant thoughts here), have lead to increased break downs in family stability, which also affects young people. Further, we encourage young people to break free from anything perceived to define them, to decide their own identity. Perhaps we force this choice upon them at too young an age, before they are ready to understand and choose their own path. (For more on this, see my recent post The problem of choice). This results in our young people growing up disconnected from faith, gender, race, and family, among other things. In short, the things that provide them with a framework for their identity. Lastly, some parents have allowed technology to parent their children. They are not made to learn any social skills or life skills. Their devices become more familiar to them than the physical world. All these things add up. Not every family is affected by them all, and there are plenty of good families out there. But perhaps young people are simply disillusioned about how they have been raised, and what they were taught (or not). Perhaps they feel that it does not match the reality of the world.

Finally, this is not entirely new. The issue runs generations deep. Different factors, different issues, but a similar result. We are trapped in a vicious cycle, each generation letting down the next, and then criticising when they do the same again. But to change everything requires changing everything, and that is both almost unachievable, and bound to create new, unexpected problems.